“Cerian! We can’t just emerge from a closet like this! I didn’t think this through properly.”
A smile threatens his lips, but he holds it back. “Remember when we spent the night on the observation deck, and you didn’t want anyone to know?”
She looks up at him and purses her lips. “Are you mocking me?”
“I...no.” He shakes his head. Does she really think that? “Forgive me. I was trying to reassure you that it was all right then, and it’s all right now.”
“Oh.”
“I love you, Arisanna. I’m not mocking you. I wouldn’t do that.”
She covers her face, and he watches her in surprise. Is she all right?
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It’s been a long day, and—”
Unsure what else to do, he wraps his arms around her and holds her. Apparently, it’s his turn to be strong.
Her father’s voice travels the length of the hallway toward them, though she probably can’t hear him with her human ears. “They ducked into a room at the end of the corridor? Whose room is that?”
“I couldn’t say, Your Majesty,” an unfamiliar voice answers. One of King Gerault’s guards must have seen them.
“I believe it’s a storage closet,” Father says, and Cerian’s eyes slide shut. Whatever secret Arisanna was hoping to keep is no longer a secret.
“Is it really?” Arisanna’s father asks as he chuckles. “Perhaps we should leave them be.”
“They are...fond of each other,” Father says, and the smile in his voice is clear even from here.
“That much was obvious when they met me at the station. This heartbinding—it works quickly, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t make them fall in love,” Father says. “It just helps them see all the reasons they might want to.”
Cerian opens his eyes and glances down at Arisanna. So many reasons to fall in love with her.
“Fascinating,” King Gerault says. “And Rominy and Elowyn? Are they in love, too?”
“Rominy and Elowyn’s love for each other is etched on their hearts wholly and completely.”
“Cerian?”
He almost jumps at Arisanna’s voice. He was focused on straining to hear their fathers’ conversation.
Which is probably not something he should be doing, especially since Arisanna needs him now.
“Yes?” he says softly as he tightens his arms around her and pushes their fathers’ voices from his mind.
“Will you...say it again?”
It? Say it? Say what?
He searches his memory, trying to guess what she’s asking for, when she continues, “I’m feeling the weight of everyone’s expectations again, and I need you to remind me—”
“That you’re mine,” he finishes for her, relief filling him that he didn’t guess something else. “Nothing else matters.”
She clings to him, though she doesn’t cry the way she did last night in the heartlanding. And he just holds her and rubs her back and combs his fingers through her hair.
“Our fathers know we’re in here,” he eventually says. “And it made them happy.”
She finally looks up at him. “What? How do you know?”
